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While yet in tender years the responsibilities of life had fallen on the shoulders of Ruth Kenway. In their former home – a city more pretentious in many ways than picturesque Milton, their present home – the Kenways had lived in what, literally, was a tenement house. Their father and mother were dead, and the small pension granted Mr. Kenway, who had been a soldier in the Spanish war, was hardly sufficient for the needs of four growing girls.
Then, almost providentially, it seemed, the Stower estate had come to Ruth, Agnes, Dot and Tess. Uncle Peter Stower had passed away, and Mr. Howbridge, the administrator of the estate, had discovered the four sisters as the next of kin, to use his legal phrase.
Uncle Peter Stower had lived for years in the “Corner House” as it was called. The mansion stood opposite the Parade Ground in Milton, and there Uncle Rufus, the colored servant of his crabbed master, had spent so many years that he regarded himself as a fixture – as much so as the roof.
At first no will could be found, though Mr. Howbridge recalled having drawn one; but eventually all legal tangles were straightened out, and the four sisters came to live in Milton, as related in the first book of the series, entitled “The Corner House Girls.”
There was Ruth, the oldest and the “little mother,” though she was not so very little now. In fact she had blossomed into a young lady, a fact of which Mr. Howbridge became increasingly aware each day.
So the four girls had come to live at the Corner House, and that was only the beginning of their adventures. In successive volumes are related the happenings when they went to school, when they had a jolly time under canvas, and when they took part in a school play.
The odd find made in the garret of the Corner House furnished material for a book in itself and paved the way for a rather remarkable tour in an auto.
In those days the Corner House girls became acquainted with a brother and sister, Luke and Cecile Shepard. Luke was a college youth, and the friendship between him and Ruth presently ripened into a deep regard for each other. But Luke had to go back to college, so Ruth saw very little of him, though the young folks corresponded freely.
All this was while the Corner House girls were “growing up.” In fact, it became necessary to tell of that in detail, so that the reason for many things that happened in the book immediately preceding this, which is called “The Corner House Girls Snowbound,” could be understood.
In that volume the Corner House girls become involved in the mysterious disappearance of two small twins, and after many exciting days spent in the vicinity of a lumber camp a clue to the mystery was hit upon.
But now the memory of the blizzard days spent in the old Lodge were forgotten. For summer had come, bringing with it new problems, not the least of which was to find a place where vacation days might be spent.
Ruth proposed to speak of that when her guardian called this Saturday afternoon. As she had hinted to Agnes, Ruth had invited a number of girl friends to luncheon. It was the plan to form a sort of young people’s Civic Club, to take up several town matters, and Ruth was the moving spirit in this, for she loved to work toward some definite end.
This Saturday was no exception in being a busy one at the Corner House.
In pursuance of her plans she had enlisted the whole household in preparing for the event, from Mrs. MacCall, who looked after matters in general, Linda, who helped with the baking, Uncle Rufus, who was cleaning the lawn, down to Dot and Tess, who had been sent for flowers.
And then had come the bribing of Dot and Tess to go to the store and, following that, the crash.
“What can it be?” murmured Ruth, as she and Agnes hastened on. “Some one surely must be hurt.”
“I hope not,” half whispered Agnes.
From the side porch came the sound of childish anguish.
“She’s all flatted out, that’s what she is! She’s all flatted out, my Alice-doll is, and it’s all your fault, Tess Kenway! Why didn’t you hold the barrel?”
“I couldn’t, I told you! It just rolled and it rolled. It’s a good thing it didn’t roll on Almira!”
“Gracious! did you hear that?” cried Agnes. “What can they have been doing?”
The two older sisters reached the porch together, there to find Mrs. MacCall holding to Tess, whom she was brushing off and murmuring to in a low voice, filled with much Scotch burring.
Dot stood at the foot of the steps holding a rather crushed doll out at arm’s length, for all who would to view. And stalking off over the lawn was Almira, the cat, carrying in her mouth a wee kitten. Uncle Rufus was hobbling toward the scene of the excitement as fast as his rheumatism would allow. Scattered on the ground at the foot of the steps was a collection of odds and ends – “trash” Uncle Rufus called it. The trash had come from an overturned barrel, and it was this barrel rolling down the steps and off the porch that had caused the noise.
“What happened?” demanded Ruth, breathing more easily when she saw that the casualty list was confined to the doll.
“It was Tess,” declared Dot. “She tipped the barrel over and it rolled on my Alice-doll and now look at her.”
Dot referred to the doll, not to her sister, though Tess was rather a sight, for she was covered with feathers from an old pillow that had been thrown into the barrel and had burst open during the progress of the accident.
At first Tess had been rather inclined to cry, but finding, to her great relief, that she was unhurt, she changed her threatened tears into laughter and said:
“Ain’t I funny looking? Just like a duck!”
“What were you trying to do, children?” asked Ruth, trying to speak rather severely in her capacity as “mother.”
“I was trying to put Almira and one of her kittens into the barrel,” explained Tess, now that Mrs. MacCall had got off most of the feathers. “I leaned over to put Almira in the barrel, soft and easy like, down on the other pillow, and it upset – I mean the barrel did. It began to roll, and I couldn’t stop it and it rolled right off the porch and – ”
“Right over my Alice-doll it rolled, and she’s all squashed!” voiced Dot.
“Oh, be quiet! She isn’t hurt a bit,” cried Tess. “Her nose was flat, anyhow.”
“Did the barrel roll over you?” asked Agnes, smiling now.
“Almost,” said Tess. “But I got out of the way in time, and Almira grabbed up her kitten and ran. Where is she?” she asked.
“Never mind the cat,” advised Ruth. “She’s caused enough excitement for one Saturday morning. Why were you putting her in the barrel, anyhow, Tess?”
“So I’d know where she was when I came back. I wanted her and one kitten to play with if Dot is going to play with her Alice-doll when we get back from the store. But I guess I leaned too far over.”
“I guess you did,” assented Ruth. “Well, I’m glad it was no worse. Is your doll much damaged, Dot?”
“Maybe I can put a little more sawdust or some rags in her and stuff her out. But she’s awful flat. And look at her nose!”
“Her nose was flat, anyhow, before the barrel rolled over her,” said Tess. “But I’m sorry it happened. I guess Almira was scared.”
“We were all frightened,” said Ruth. “It was a terrible racket. Now let the poor cat alone, and run along to the store. Oh, what a mess this is,” and she looked at the refuse scattered from the trash barrel. “And just when I want things to look nice for the girls. It always seems to happen that way!”
Uncle Rufus shuffled along.
“Doan you-all worry now, honey,” he said, speaking to all the girls as one. “I’ll clean up dish yeah trash in no time. I done got de lawn like a billiard table, an’ I’ll pick up dish yeah trash. De ash man ought to have been along early dis mawnin’ fo’ to get it. I set it dar fo’ him.”
That explained the presence on the side porch of the barrel of odds and ends collected for the ash man to remove. He had not called, and seeing the receptacle there, with an old feather pillow among the other refuse, Tess thought she had her opportunity.
“Run along now, my bonny bairns! Run along!” counseled the old Scotch woman. “’Tis late it’s getting, and the lassies will be here to lunch before we know it.”
“Yes, do run along,” begged Ruth. “And then come back to be washed and have your hair combed. I want you to look nice if, accidentally, you appear on the scene.”
Thus bidden, and fortified with another cookie each, Tess and Dot hurried on to the store, Dot tenderly trying to pinch into shape the flattened nose of her Alice-doll.
Rufus got a broom and began to clean the scattered trash to put back into the barrel, and Mrs. MacCall hurried into her kitchen, where Linda was humming a Finnish song as she clattered amid the pots and pans.
“Oh, we must finish the parlor and library,” declared Ruth. “Do come and help, Agnes.”
“Coming, Ruth. Oh, here’s Neale!” she added, pausing to look toward the gate through which at that moment appeared a sturdy lad of pleasant countenance.
“He acts as though he had something on his mind,” went on Agnes, as the youth broke into a run on seeing her and her sister on the steps. “Wait a moment, Ruth. He may have something to tell us.”
“The fates forbid that it is anything more about Tess and Dot!” murmured Ruth, for the children had some minutes before disappeared down the street.
“News!” cried Neale O’Neil, as he swung up the steps. “I’ve got such news for you! Oh, it’s great!” and his face fairly shone.
CHAPTER III – THE ELEVATOR
“Just a minute now, Neale,” said Ruth, in the quiet voice she sometimes had to use when Tess and Dot, either or both, were engaged in one of their many startling feats. “Quiet down a bit, please, before you tell us.”
The boy had reached the porch, panting from his run, and he had been about to burst out with the news, which he could hardly contain, when Ruth addressed him.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you want to hear it?” he asked, fanning himself vigorously with his hat.
“Oh, yes, it isn’t that,” said Agnes, with a smile, which caused Neale’s lips to part in an answering one, showing his white teeth that made a contrast to his tanned face. “But we have just passed through rather a strenuous time, Neale, and if you have anything more startling to tell us about Tess and Dot – ”
“Oh, it isn’t about them!” laughed Neale O’Neil. “They’re all right. I just saw them going down the street.”
“Thank goodness!” murmured Ruth. “I thought they had got into more mischief. Well, go on, Neale, and tell us the news. Is it good?”
“The best ever,” he answered, sobering down a little. “The only trouble is that there isn’t very much of it. Only a sort of rumor, so to speak.”
“Sit down,” said Agnes, and she herself suited her action to the words. “Uncle Rufus has the spilled trash cleaned up now.”
“Yes’m, it’s done all cleaned up now,” murmured the old colored servant as he departed, having made the side porch presentable again. “But I suah does wish dat trash man’d come ’roun’ yeah befo’ dem two chilluns come back. Dey’s gwine to upsot dat barrel ag’in, if dey gets a chanst; dey suah is!” and he departed, shaking his head woefully enough.
“What happened?” asked Neale. “An accident?”
“You might call it that,” assented Ruth, sitting down beside her sister. “It was a combination of Tess, Dot, Alice-doll and Almira all rolled into one.”
“That’s enough!” laughed the boy, to whom readers of the previous volumes of the series need no introduction.
Neale O’Neil had once been in a circus. He was known as “Master Jakeway” and was the son of James O’Neil. Neale’s uncle, William Sorber, was the ringmaster and lion tamer in the show billed as “Twomley & Sorber’s Herculean Circus and Menagerie.” Some time before the opening of the present story, Neale had left the circus and had come to Milton to live, making his home with Con Murphy, the town cobbler.
“Well, go on with your news, Neale,” said Ruth gently, as she gazed solicitously at the boy. She was beginning to have more and more something of a feeling of responsibility toward him. This was due to the fact that Ruth was growing older, as has been evidenced, and also to the fact that Neale was also, and at times, she thought, he showed the lack of the care of a loving mother.
“Yes, I want to hear it,” interposed Agnes. “And then we simply must get the house in shape, if the girls aren’t to find us with smudges of dust on our noses.”
“Is there anything I can do?” asked Neale eagerly. “Are you going to have a party?”
“Some of Ruth’s young ladies are coming to lunch,” explained Agnes. “I don’t suppose I may be classed with them,” and she looked shyly at her sister.
“I don’t see why not,” came the retort from the oldest Kenway girl. “I’d like to have you come to the meeting, Agnes.”
“No, thank you, civics are not much in my line. I hated ’em in school. Though maybe I’ll come to the eats. But let’s hear Neale’s news. It may spoil from being kept.”
“Not much danger of that,” said the boy, with another bright smile. “But are you sure there isn’t anything I can do to help?”
“Perfectly sure, Neale,” answered Ruth. “The two irrepressibles brought me the flowers I wanted to decorate with, and it only remains to put them in vases. But now I’m sure we have chattered enough about ourselves. Let us hear about you.”
“It isn’t so much about me; it’s about – father,” and Neale’s voice sank when he said that. He spoke in almost a reverent tone. And then his face lighted up again as he exclaimed:
“I have some news about him! That’s why I ran to tell you. I knew you’d be glad.”
“Oh, Neale, that’s fine!” cried Agnes, clasping him by the arm. “After all these years, really to have news of him! I’m so glad!”
“Is he really found?” asked Ruth, who was of a less excitable type than her sister, though she could get sufficiently worked up when there was need for it.
“No, he isn’t exactly found,” went on Neale. “I only wish he were. But I just heard, in a roundabout way, that he may not be so very far from here.”
“That is good news,” declared Ruth. “How did you hear it?”
“Well, you know my father was what is called a rover,” went on the boy. “I presume I don’t need to tell you that. He wouldn’t have been in the circus business with Uncle Bill, and he wouldn’t have had me in the circus – along with the trick mules – unless he had loved to travel about and see the country.”
“That’s a safe conclusion,” remarked Agnes. To her sister and herself Neale’s circus experiences were an old story. He had often told them how, when a small boy, he had performed in the sawdust ring.
“Yes, father was a rover,” went on Neale. “At least that’s the conclusion I’ve come to of late. I really didn’t know him very well. He left the circus when I was still small and told Uncle Bill to look after me. Well, Uncle Bill did, I’ll say that for him. He was as kind as any boy’s uncle could be.”
“Anyhow, as you know, father left the circus, gave me in charge of Uncle Bill, and went off to seek his fortune. I suppose he realized that I would be better off out of a circus, but he knew he had to live, and money is needed for that. So that’s why he quit the ring, I imagine. He’s been seeking his fortune for quite a while now, and – ”
“Neale, do you mean to say he has come back?” cried Agnes.
“Not exactly,” was the answer. “At least if he has come back I haven’t seen him. But I just met a man – a sort of tramp he is, to tell you the truth – and he says he knew a man who saw my father in the Alaskan Klondike, where father had a mine. And this man – this tramp – says my father started back to the States some time ago.”
“With a lot of gold?” asked Ruth, her eyes gleaming with hope for Neale.
“This the man didn’t know. All he knew was that there was a rumor that my father had struck it fairly rich and had started back toward civilization. But even that news makes me feel good. I’m going to see if I can find him. I always had an idea, and so did Uncle Bill, that it was to Alaska father had gone, and this proves it.”
“But who is this man who gave you the news, and why doesn’t he know where your father can be found?” asked Ruth. “Also is there anything we can do to help you, Neale?”
“What a lot of questions!” exclaimed Agnes.
“I think I can answer them,” Neale said. He was calmer now, but his face still shone and his eyes sparkled under the stress of the happy excitement. “The man, as I said, is a tramp. He asked me for some money. He was driving a team of mules on the canal towpath, and I happened to look at one of the animals. It reminded me of one we had in the circus – a trick mule – but it took only a look to show me it wasn’t the same sort of kicker. I got to talking to the man, and he said he was broke – only had just taken the job and the boss wouldn’t advance him a cent until the end of the week. I gave him a quarter, and we got to talking. Then he told me he knew men who had been in the Klondike, and, naturally, I asked him if he had ever heard of a man named O’Neil. He said he had, and then the story came out.”
“But how can you be sure it was your father?” asked Ruth, wisely not wanting false hopes to be raised.
“That was easily proved when I mentioned circus,” said Neale. “This tramp, Hank Dayton, he said his name was, remembered the men speaking of my father talking about circuses, and saying that he had left me in one.”
“That does seem to establish an identity,” Ruth conceded. “Where is this man Dayton now, Neale?”
“He had to go on with the canal boat. But I learned from him all I could. It seems sure that my father is either back here, after some years spent in Alaska, or that he will come here soon. He must have been writing to Uncle Bill, and so have learned that I came here to live. Uncle Bill knows where I am, but I don’t know where he is at this moment, though I could get in touch with him. But I’ll be glad to see my father again. Oh, if I could only find him!”
Neale seemed to gaze afar off, over the fields and woods, as if he visualized his long-lost father coming toward him. His eyes had a dreamy look.
“Can’t we do something to help you?” asked Ruth.
“That’s what I came over about as soon as I had learned all the mule driver could tell me,” went on the boy. “I thought maybe we could ask Mr. Howbridge, your guardian, how to go about finding lost persons. There are ways of advertising for people who have disappeared.”
“There is,” said Agnes. “I’ve often seen in the paper advertisements for missing persons who are wanted to enable an estate to be cleared up, and the last time I was in Mr. Howbridge’s office I heard him telling one of the clerks to have such an advertisement prepared.”
“Then that’s what I’ve got to have done!” declared Neale. “I’ve got some money, and I can get more from Uncle Bill if I can get in touch with him. I’m going to see Mr. Howbridge and start something!”
